Major League Soccer

Oh, all of those players are retired except for Marshall and Davis afaik

I'm totally with the players, too. Raise the cap, raise minimums, and allow free agency after a certain point. It's entirely unfair.

owners have apparently cut it to over 28 years old/8 years of service, the ol' generous so-and-sos

damn, i was kind of looking forward to the game on saturday. obv support the players tho, bring on the strike.

Ahahaha bad news for the owners that this leaked

http://www.prostamerika.com/2015/03/04/talk-about-sht-timing-huge-audimls-deal-leaks/112852

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orlando-city-lions/on-the-pitch/os-mls-players-avoid-strike-orlando-city-20150304-post.html

deal reportedly made, details sketchy

second half of dc united and alajuelense upcoming, in which we might see our first ever MLS-related on-field homicide

Lots of reports leaking out that players think their union caved and ended up with a terrible deal.

http://www.sportingnews.com/soccer/story/2015-03-05/mls-cba-player-strike-labor-negotiations-union-vote-galaxy-red-bull-new-york-city-fc-owners

torn that I felt for the players but Orlando City opening as an MLS team on Sunday had me wanting the season to start.

pretty good preseason round-up, despite the side-scrolling bs http://www.espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12392911/

I tried to read that Espn thing but fuck that interface.

Let's go Fire!

Chicago was a mess in that first half. So, so lucky.

Fire are dogshit again! Yalloped

They have some talent but I don't know what formation they're playing. They don't hold a line, they swarm after the ball leaving giant holes, and don't appear to talk to each other. Rough. Maybe there will be a second half miracle.

Miracle turned out to be they lost by two instead of five.

Typical

this year im going to follow mls closely so looking for good sites or twitter feeds to follow for that purpose.

left it too late to get cheap seats for whitecaps season opener so i'll be watching on tv as im broke. which sucks as saturday 3pm soccer is p much the best.

not overly optimistic about this season from a caps pov. defense was strong last year yet they've lost a few centre-backs who all played a lot throughout the season, they've been replaced with new signings, but defensive changes are so often fraught with uncertainty and risk, especially centre-back pairings where you need good comm.unication and that sort of division of labour with contrasting skill-sets/areas of responsibility (the ball player and the pit-bull, the reader of the game with the powerhouse etc.)

so Orlando City's first match is tomorrow and they've sold 60,000 tickets or so. I am terrified at what this will do to downtown as Orlando is a city that basically becomes untenable after concerts/games in its 20,000 seat arena. The likes of this we have NEVER experienced, in my estimation.

But it's kind of exciting too - I hope that, like all other sporting ventures in this 'fine' city, that we don't lose interest quickly. With that being said, the Orlando City club was extremely popular here in its prior league too.

this year im going to follow mls closely so looking for good sites or twitter feeds to follow for that purpose.

for Vancouver-specific info I'd suggest

https://twitter.com/southsiders
http://www.eightysixforever.com/

for general league coverage (and also USA/North America) beyond the official outlets

https://twitter.com/JeffreyCarlisle
https://twitter.com/GrantWahl
https://twitter.com/SoccerInsider (one of, if not the best imo)

Steve Goff (SoccerInsider) covers DC United closely, but delivers great, no-BS coverage about the bigger stories around the league, which is refreshing. Most North American soccer writers give deference to the league in weird ways imo, and the rest are employed by the league directly.

thanks.

got to admit 60k for the opener is p impressive, should be cool to see.

so im missing so far the first 25 minutes of this whitecaps game because the curling has gone long. dear god.

altidore(!!!) with a well-taken goal from an assist from giovinco ties the game at 1-1.

Yeah that was nicely done.The other games I caught didn't have those moments.

That was the best game so far. Though the first half of this Dallas v San Jose game was solid.

Orlando may be a garbage city but in my 34 years here I have not seen a fever like this since Shaquille ' s debut in 1992. It is unlikely to sustain at this level all year but having a blast. Even with the garbage officiating

good for you guys - this is an extremely enjoyable game so far and the fans seem awesome

I'll take a tie! I had a hard time seeing that the Kaka ball deflected in cos I was behind the opposite goal but the place erupted.

favorite part of this impressive seattle goal is the half-hearted appeal for off side
http://gfycat.com/RewardingAccurateHoiho

weekend update: The Fire are still terrible, though a little less terrible than week 1. I still don't think the coach has what it takes to field a team in the league at this point. They're still talking about the new players needing time to 'gel' even though two teams who didn't exist this time last year have been playing away successfully for 2 weeks now.

Also: http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2015/03/16/mls-confirms-advanced-discussions-minnesota-expansion-will-evaluate-going-be

About 24k tickets sold for today's Orlando City. Insane considering how the Magic couldn't do those numbers during the season they went to the Finals.

Whitecaps will be tough. I saw them play the Fire in Chicago last year. 0-0 draw...

not often the only and game-winning goal comes in in the 96th minute!

so whitecaps got soundly beaten by toronto first game of the season, they were arguably the better team in the first half but then were just dross in the second and were totally bossed. they've have won 1-0 twice in a row now away from home, and deservedly so in both cases imo.

all 3 goals this season scored by new boy octavio rivero who is very talented at link-up play and seems to have finishing down p good too. he's 23 and from uruguay, he was playing in chile last year where he scored 10 in 16 making him one of the top scorers that season - chilean football like a lot of latin america has two mini seasons a year so 16 games was one whole mini-season.

too early to get too hopeful but id guess the playoffs are a distinct possibility again this year. home games against timbers, galaxy, and columbus coming up, looking forward to them #stokedonmls

also was nice to see ricky kaka. still has his class, although he's physically past his prime.

bleh, gutted by that goal. Orlando squandered a lot of scoring opportunities and their offensive capability is still very sloppy overall. Vancouver was able to force a lot of turnovers in inopportune places and almost made us pay about three times for it.

It's not surprising, Orlando was a successful minor league soccer team that had to jettison much of its lineup and they're just not there yet. solid effort, but man....deflating goal. congrats jim!

supposedly there's gonna be an announcement re MN United this week?

not the first person to say it but its' tru, there is something to the red eye
http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/jmarthaler_1362513554_Minnesota_United_Logo_small.jpg

on grass, in city/good city, legit team. lets goooooooo

Avaya stadium was pretty nice, too bad Fire lost again

Love MN coming in but sad I have to hate them now

its true, we are enemies

Watching the San Jose v. Chicago game because I wanted to check out the crowd in the new stadium. I think Chicago looks worse than they did the first week. Do they practice? Or travel together? Seems like a team with some talent but zero structure or plan or belief in themselves. Utterly random when things work out for them.

Also, the white uniforms look like little kids summer pajamas.

where do I begin

honestly I do like the unis though

I like the dark unis but not the whites. The chest stripes don't work for me.

Do you think it's really about coaching? Or do you need player continuity before coaching?

I look at my local team - Dallas - and they've played so many minutes together that they're almost better when everything breaks down. Helps to have Blas Perez who is a goal poacher with few peers.

fwiw the shirt design is a takeoff of one of their old shirts + the colors from the city flag

http://www.oldfootballshirts.com/img/shirts/426/chicago-fire-away-football-shirt-2000-2002-s_710_1.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oPKFLzZk4Cg/VPSAml2uQWI/AAAAAAAAfFY/pjjiTAuUgHM/s1600/Chicago-Fire-2015-Away-Kit%2B%286%29.jpg

See, I like (and remember) the old shirt! The sleeve stripes and the light blue Quaker stripes together just screams "early 80s pajamas" to me.

Do you think it's really about coaching? Or do you need player continuity before coaching?

I look at my local team - Dallas - and they've played so many minutes together that they're almost better when everything breaks down. Helps to have Blas Perez who is a goal poacher with few peers.

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, March 24, 2015 8:40 PM (23 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I and most other long-time fans blame ownership before the coach. Don't get me wrong, I think Yallop is a terrible coach, but I think Guus Hiddink or Pep Guardiola or Bruce Arena or really any of the 'best coaches' in the world or just the USA would struggle mightily here. Ownership provides the bare minimum of investment and is widely seen as sitting on the franchise while other owners and expansion cause team values to rise and rise. (He bought in for $40m I think, and NYCFC went for $100m+ ... Chicago is a big market.)

I also realize almost all supporters of every club in the world hate ownership, so it's not a unique situation.

xp I also haaaate the current home shirt with a passion. The removal of the iconic white chest stripe is a crime.

I could go on about ownership for a while. There are a couple of 10k+ post threads on bigsoccer about the topic if you're interested in finding out more.

I might just to torture myself. Hopefully things turn around for you Dan.